No More Hiding...

Hello everyone!

It is shocking to me that it has been nearly a year since my last post...and the truth is that I have been hiding from you! The last year has been brutal drive on the weight loss journey...filled with a several potholes and then the engine finally just exploded, and there I was, sitting fuming and disabled on the side of the road! I decided that I would write to you as soon as I got it under control and was able to lose the weight I had started to gain, but it as the months ticked by, I realized it wasn't happening.

So...unfortunately I have gained some of my weight back, a lot actually. The hard part about this is that I had PROMISED myself that this would never happen to me. I have seen it happen with friends, with family, and with celebrities on television (always thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have such a public battle). But the truth is that it has happened. It's not the first time I have lost weight and then gained it back...but that being said, it doesn't make it any easier either!

As I write this to you, I am not in the depths of despair...in fact I am feeling really good and hopeful and happy. Even though I have a whole closet pants and skirts that are a little too tight to wear at the moment, I recently have felt a resurgance of motivation and optimism. For a long time I thought that I was hiding my weight gain from everyone...and that if I didn't acknowledge it or say it out loud that it wouldn't really be true. Then it came to the point that I knew it must be obvious that I had gained weight again, but was too ashamed to talk about it, for some reason I felt like everyone would be disappointed in me, or be mad or disgusted with me...as if they wouldn't want to be my friend anymore OR spend time with me...like I thought they would be embarrased of me.

When the day came that I finally said it out loud to a girlfriend, she was surprised to hear how much I had gained, but that I was still her same beautiful, funny, sassy friend that I had been a year ago and that any change was all in my head. Now, I know that there has been an actual physical change in the size of my butt, but the fact is that I really am all of those things that she said I am. I am still attractive, I am still funny, I am still pretty darn sassy, and most of all, I am still on this difficult journey of finding the health and happiness I am searching for through losing weight.

Writing about it in this blog is really quite theraputic for me, and I look forward to recording my accomplishments, my thoughts, and even my setbacks....I've really missed that over the past several months.